Path 2

Judge Rules Saggy Pants-Wearing Not Illegal, Just Stupid

July 28, 2010

In a groundbreaking decision, a Bronx judge has determined that wearing saggy pants that expose your underwear is not illegal in New York! Some notes from the judge’s decision, via the New York Law Journal:

“While most of us may consider it distasteful, and indeed foolish, to wear one’s pants so low as to expose the underwear … ‘people can dress as they please, wear anything, so long as they do not offend public order and decency,'” Criminal Court Judge Ruben Franco wrote in People v. Martinez.

It seems that the unfortunately dressed Mr. Martinez had received a summons for wearing “his pants down below his buttocks exposing underwear [and] potentially showing private parts.”

Awesomely, the judge turned to Wikipedia in his quest to get at the truth about saggy pants wearing. The site defines “sagging” as “a manner of wearing trousers … below the waist, hanging below the waist area and therefore revealing much of the underwear.” [Fascinating side note: Women wearing low-rise jeans to reveal their G-string underwear (the “whale tail”) is not generally considered sagging.]

In such backward places as Georgia and Louisiana, people have discussed banning saggy pants. But in New York, where we are more high-minded, “the right to wear pants as low as one wishes, so long as decency is not offended, remains unabated, the judge concluded.”